Stalin: A Biography

When you hear the name Joseph Stalin, you can't help but shudder at the very utterance of his name. What most of us would imagine is a murderous dictator whose only aim was to gain and keep the power he inherited from his predecessor, the first head of the USSR, Vladimir Lenin. We see him as heartless, cruel and calculating. This picture has mainly been placed in our minds by the Western media during the Cold War. But who is Joseph Stalin, was he really as evil and sinister as we all believe him to be and just what lead him to become the murderous villain we all believe him to be? This book by Robert Service gives us the answers to the questions we have all asked. He does it in a completely objectionable manner through presenting facts that have recently been made known thanks to the release of unpublished material from the Moscow archives. Not once in this entire book does Service draw upon facts and make his own conclusions; he also does not choose to ignore some facts whilst choosing the more interesting ones. Throughout history, it can happen that a story of a particular event can be told from many different perspectives and told very differently. Robert realises this in the writing of his book so what he does is brings up the numerous different accounts and allows you to think for yourself which perspective may be the most plausible. An example of this would be in the chapter on the death of Stalin's second wife, Nadya. They are at a party together and Nadya leaves the party early and alone leading her to commit suicide. There are numerous accounts as to why Nadya left. One was that Stalin was flirting with the wife of a man who served with him in the Soviet-Polish war, Alexander Yegorov, another story was that he shouted her across the room using the word "you" which she took exception to and another that he flicked a lit cigarette at her. Service presents what he thinks may have been the most likely from what we come to know of Stalin's personality, but ultimately the reader makes the final decision. Now is the time for admission from my part. I was much like those described in the first paragraph; entirely ignorant to whom Stalin the man really was. I literally know almost nothing about the USSR and the Russian Revolution as a whole, so it was quite silly of me to pick up this book in the hopes of learning a lot more about the Russian Revolution and communism as a whole. Robert Service is a well accomplished academic and this Biography isn't exactly a beginner's guide. However, this book as a whole was very much worth it as I learned a lot about Stalin the man and as a result learned a bit about the USSR, the way in which it ran as a government and also Stalin's main adversaries throughout his life. So what have I learned about Stalin the man? I have learned a lot and thanks to Service's Biography of Stalin, I actually see a more human and psychological reason behind Stalin's downfall and almost emotionless personality. Although I am

A very readable biography of Stalin that describes his entire life, from his beginnings in Georgia to the top of the Soviet Union. His relationship to Lenin and other members of the Bolshevik clique and his rise to power are all chronicled. There is a letter from Tito to Stalin that was found in Stalin's desk drawer shortly after he died. Tito, in this letter, is out-dueling Stalin in threatening assassination attempts. It encapsulates the gangster tactics of the entire communist regime. Service points out that there were no innocents in the rise to power after the October revolution. Stalin learnt well from his teacher Lenin. Bolshevism may have been based on the books of Marx and Engels, but its practice was raw power and Stalin wielded this for over thirty years. Sometimes in this work there seems to be too much focus around Stalin and not enough history of the outside forces - such as the effects of famine during the 1930's. Nevertheless we are left with the portrait of a ruthless individual who amassed power for its' own sake. Stalin accrued very little personal wealth during his reign - for example he only wore good clothes during his World War II meetings when the Allied powers came to visit. It is also interesting to note that it is only during World War II that Stalin had any prolonged and direct contact with the outside world. At the end of the war Stalin effectively shut the door on the West - he met with the leaders of China and his East European satellites, but this was more like the bully dealing with his victims in the schoolyard. Service does give Stalin credit for pushing the Soviet Union into the twentieth century - industrially and educationally. Without this the Soviet Union would not have been able to cope with the German onslaught in 1941. But there was a heavy price to pay for all this- the Soviet Union was cut-off culturally from the rest of mankind and its' ideological dogmatic path collapsed in the 1990's. It was Stalin that led his country into this one-way street from which it was never able to veer away from and adjust to a different lifestyle.

Without much debate, one of the best works on Stalin. What is worthwhile mentioning here is: Unlike many American and European historians, biographers and political analysts who have had written, edited or commented on Stalin and his rise to power in the CC of the USSR quite acrimoniously and dubiously over the years, this book is quite different. Instead, Service does an EXCELLENT job of: 1. Taking into accounts as they were and not mentioning what he thinks on them. Rather criticising Stalin and his every political move, we get a clear account of his real motives, his way of thinking, pressures he handled, the question of being either in power or out of it. 2. His fights with Trotsky, later with Kamenev and Zinoviev and then finally with Bukharin are mentioned and exemplified in great finesse. What one ought to note is that contrary to what most historians (over the decades) have seen Stalin as: short-tempered and haughty, he was a man of great discipline, far-sighted and highly motivated political analyst. His childhood, rise to power, dekulakisation, rapid industrialisation and collectivisation of farms and other facets of Soviet regime are very nicely introduced, mentioned and illustrated. Moreover what makes the reading even better is: opposite views from Lenin, Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin and others are mentioned and contrasted. 5 stars overall! Subhasish Ghosh 26th Dec 2005 St. Cross College, University of Oxford

Gangster! Evil dictator! Georgian Al Capone! Robert Service uses all of these terms to describe Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhughashvili, known as Stalin, in this new biography. That he also uses terms such as intellectual, paterfamilias, singer of songs and lover of wine, to describe the `man of steel' disgusts and alienates some readers. Apparently, we must distance ourselves from such a man, make him somehow inhuman, in order to fit him into our modern worldview. More interesting, and more useful, is a biography that seeks to understand the human factors, for Stalin was not some alien dropped from outer space, but a man. This is the work of a professional historian who is deeply immersed in both the primary sources (many newly available) and the historiography of Stalin. Service seeks to undertake a multidimensional approach, looking at political, economic, personal, international and many other factors of both Stalin and the world in which he lived. Among the more interesting points Service brings out, is the importance of Stalin in the pre-revolutionary period, including his importance and high place (although less visible than some of the others) in the party structure, debunking the myth that Stalin came out of nowhere, suddenly and mysteriously knocking the Bolshevik train off track. Stalin was Lenin's protégé and student, and although he differed on several key points, there was continuity between the two. In a sense this is the sequel to the author's works on Lenin. If there is one thing I wish could be added to a generally excellent work, it would be while Service sufficiently discredits both Leninism and Stalinism I would have preferred, since he was on the subject, a discussion of the failure not only Bolshevism but of Marxism in general. Admittedly it is slightly beyond the scope, but it seems to leave open the question, could a Marxist state under some more benign leadership have worked? It is my belief that the historian of the twentieth century has already before him evidence to answer this question, and anyway, (with sincere apologies) let us hope no one will ever undertake such an experiment. That being said, in all a very good biography suitable for all readers.

Reading this biography one becomes aware how much previous biographies of Stalin were affected by Trotsky's work and perspective. A good deal of scholarship about the Soviet Union depended on documents that were carried out by him and his written works were influential. Some of the more influential writers of Soviet history were in fact disciples of Trotsky such as Isaac Deutscher. Broadly Trotsky hoped to gain power in the Soviet Union following Lenin's death. He was however outmanoeuvred by Stalin. Trotsky was contemptuous of Stalin's ability and he thought he was a nonentity. This is reflective in his writing and accounts of Stalin's career and rise. As a result he portrayed Stalin as a nothing who had arisen not through his own ability but through a mysterious numbers game in the party which preferred hacks to people of real talent. Stalin after in his road to power was happy to portray himself in a similar way to the Trotsky caricature of him. That is an ordinary practical man who could empathise with the problems of workers and peasants and have real solutions to problems rather than overblown rhetoric. This book suggests a very different picture of Stalin's rise. In reality he was only General Secretary of the party for a short time before the power struggle to oust Trotsky. He had little time to stack the party and the reason he won was because he was a better political operator. In fact Stalin had always been an important figure in the Bolshevik movement holding important positions such as being the editor of the party newspaper. Although a poor public speaker he was a person of considerable intelligence and he was a skilled writer. Broadly Trosky was a person who was somewhat egocentric and he had little ability to read people and depended on his charisma and ability as a speaker. By the 1920's a bit more was required to gain power in the Soviet Union. The main power of the book is to show that Stalin was in fact an intellectual figure. It deals in less detail with the historical background of Stalin's rule skating over the oppression of the peasants and the development of industry. In fact the chapter on the second world war makes at least one mistake suggesting that the battle of Karhov was the first Soviet offensive of the war obviously forgetting the attacks on the German forces by Zhukov in late 1941. Never the less the power and importance of the book is to show how previous biographies were written and influenced by ideas around Stalin's rise which when put to the test are shown to be wrong. In looking at Stalin's personality it is also clear that he was not a person who suffered from what would be described as a mental illness. His actions were to purposeful and systematic for that. Despite this the book is perhaps better at showing what could be described as the evil of Stalin's rule. Not only the effects on those who were killed by his regime but the brutal and irrational nature of the regime he created.